UCSF researchers have identified collections of tiny molecules known as microRNAs that affect distinct processes critical for the progression of cancer. The findings, they say, expand researchers’ understanding of the important regulatory function of microRNAs in tumor biology and point to new directions for future study and potential treatments. The researchers refer to these microRNA colle...

Scientists have assembled the first global geological map of the Solar System’s largest moon – and in doing so have gathered new evidence into the formation of the large, icy satellite. Wes Patterson, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, led a seven-year effort to craft a detailed map of geological features on Ganymede, t...

The world faces a compounding series of crises driven by human activity, which existing governments and institutions are increasingly powerless to cope with, a group of eminent environmental scientists and economists has warned. Writing in the journal Science, the researchers say that nations alone are unable to resolve the sorts of planet-wide challenges now arising. Pointing to global action on ...

Researchers from the University of Washington and the University of Florida used gene therapy to cure two squirrel monkeys of color blindness — the most common genetic disorder in people. Writing online September 15 in the journal Nature, scientists cast a rosy light on the potential for gene therapy to treat adult vision disorders involving cone cells — the most important cells for vi...

A new study published in the September 11, 2009 issue of Science by researchers at the NYU School of Medicine reveals a conceptually novel mechanism that plays an important role in making human pathogens like Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus anthracis resistant to numerous antibiotics. The study led by Evgeny A. Nudler, PhD, The Julie Wilson Anderson Professor of Biochemistry at NYU Langone Medi...

Economists and neuroscientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have shown that they can use information obtained through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measurements of whole-brain activity to create feasible, efficient, and fair solutions to one of the stickiest dilemmas in economics, the public goods free-rider problem—long thought to be unsolvable. This ...

Researchers at The University of Nottingham have a new weapon in their arsenal of tools to push back the boundaries of science, engineering, veterinary medicine and archaeology. From soils and sediments, to chunks of pavement, archaeological remains and chocolate bars … the Nanotom, the most advanced 3D X-ray micro Computed Tomography (CT) scanner in the world, will help scientists from a wi...

In a perfect world, for every boy there would of course be a girl, but a new study shows that actual sex ratios can sometimes sway very far from that ideal. In fact, the male-to-female ratio of one tropical butterfly has shifted rapidly over time and space, driven by a parasite that specifically kills males of the species, reveals a report published online on September 10th in Current Biology, a C...

A team of environmental scientists from Harvard and Tsinghua University demonstrated the enormous potential for wind-generated electricity in China. Using extensive metrological data and incorporating the Chinese government`s energy bidding and financial restrictions for delivering wind power, the researchers estimate that wind alone has the potential to meet the country`s electricity demands proj...

Michigan Technological University researchers have linked three genes to the most common type of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), generally known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Professor Shuanglin Zhang leads the team of mathematicians that isolated the genes from the many thousands scattered throughout human DNA. He notes that their discovery does not mean an end to ALS, but it could provide ...